


English Help

by Chocoholic_Shinigami



Category: Tokyo Ghoul
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, F/M, Fluff, Some Swearing, abusive family member
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-25
Updated: 2016-07-25
Packaged: 2018-07-26 13:41:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,194
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7576075
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chocoholic_Shinigami/pseuds/Chocoholic_Shinigami
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Hinami, you’re gonna help him on his English work.”</p><p>“What?” the two teenagers said in unison, both taken aback.</p><p>“I don’t need help. I’m not an idiot,” Ayato said indignantly.</p><p>“Tell me that when you’re not failing."</p><p> </p><p>In which they both are dorks and some serious stuff happens.</p>
            </blockquote>





	English Help

**Author's Note:**

> Hinami and Ayato are in high school and Touka and Kaneki are in college. Kaneki's family situation is basically the same except fro the fact that Hinami is his adopted sister.  
> There's one scene with kind of a lot of swearing, but aside from that this is pretty PG

 

“Good morning, Touka,” Hinami said cheerily as she walked into the coffee shop next to Kaneki.

 

“Oh, hey Hinami.” Touka turned her attention to Kaneki. “Yomo’s gonna be helping with your training today. Try not to cry.” Once Kaneki was in the back room Touka turned her attention back to Hinami. “Can you do me a favor?”

“Sure,” she said a little hesitantly.

 

“Give me a minute.” Touka walked over to one of the tables near the back. There was a blue haired boy slumped at the table she walked over to, probably around the same age as Hinami. She couldn’t hear what was being said, but there were a lot of hand gestures on Touka’s part. 

 

Touka looked back to where Hinami was standing and waved her over.

 

“Hinami, this is Ayato. Ayato, this is Hinami.”

 

“Uh, hi,” Hinami waved slightly.

 

“Hey,” said the boy, Ayato, without making eye contact.

 

“Hinami, you’re gonna help him on his English work.”

 

“What?” the two teenagers said in unison, both taken aback.

 

“I don’t need help. I’m not an idiot,” Ayato said indignantly.

 

“Tell me that when you’re not failing,” said Touka, guiding Hinami into the other chair before leaving to resume doing her job. 

 

“Is there, um, anything in particular you need help with?” Hinami asked awkwardly, looking over the papers he had spread on the table. 

 

“Well… fine I need help on understanding the symbolism in this or something.”

 

 

 

“Why am I here?” asked Ayato as Touka pushed him through the doorway leading to Kaneki’s apartment.

 

“I don’t have anyone else to watch you,” she said simply.

 

“You’ve left me at the home by myself before-“

 

“Do you want to get kidnapped and sold as a child slave?!”

 

Both Kaneki and Ayato stared at her.

 

“Exactly. Don’t give him a hard time.”

 

“Have fun on your date!” Kaneki said as Touka was about to exit.

 

“It’s not a date, dumbass,” she called back.

 

Ayato carelessly tossed his bag on the small couch pushed up against the wall.

 

“I’m gonna go out on a limb and say you wanna be left alone?” said Kaneki cautiously. He received a glare from Ayato. “Yeah, I’ll just go in the other room.”

 

Once he was left by himself, Ayato pulled out his phone. He stared at the home screen blankly. No point, not like he’s got any friends that wanna contact him.

 

He rifled through his bag. Touka wins. He pulled out the homework she had shoved at him as they left the house.

 

The small apartment was extremely stuffy. Not that he had much of anything better to compare it to. There were too many bookshelves shoved into one place.

 

Ayato took more time than probably needed to spread out all his work materials on the cramped coffee table, even more time still to stare at it in contemplation of where to begin. Fucking literature. What’s even the point to learning all of this? Touka sure as hell never remembered anything about it. That much was clear being that she had to hire someone two years younger than her to help him. Hire probably wasn’t even the right word, it’s not like Hinami was getting paid. 

 

There’s something really beautiful about irony, like sitting in the home of a psycho lit nerd while not knowing how to answer a lit question. All the same, he was nowhere near about to ask Kaneki how to do this. Mark it up to pride if you will.

 

The front door swung open. “Onii-chan - oh.” Hinami stood in the door way. Ayato was surprised to see her here. He was almost certain she didn’t live here, not that he knew anything though.

 

“He’s in the other room.” He gestured towards the other door. 

 

“Oh, okay.” She hovered for a moment. Ayato noticed that he eyes were rimmed red, her voice a little choked. She’d been crying.

 

“Are you okay?” he asked before he could stop himself. She seemed taken aback. Her face momentarily faltered. He could see the glint of unshed tears in the corners of her eyes.

 

“I’m fine.”

 

“No, you’re not.”

 

“Well why did you ask if you knew the answer?!” She wiped her wrist across her eyes quickly, but he still saw the tear that escaped. “Sorry, I just…” She bit her lip, focusing her eyes on her hands. Ayato could tell he had crossed a line, he just didn’t know what that line was.

 

“My cousin, he… it doesn’t really matter…” Hinami looked up with a smile. Fake. “Do you mind if I sit in here?”

 

Ayato shrugged, looking away.

 

“If you wanna talk about whatever happened I’m-“

 

“Thanks, but really I’m fine. Nothing I can’t handle.”

 

Hinami picked a seemingly random book from one of the many on the shelves. She sat down on the far end of the couch and began to read, though it seemed like she kept being distracted by Ayato’s work set up.

 

She put her book to the side, sliding over to sit next to him. 

 

“You should start using pen instead of pencil when you write your notes,” she said in a soft voice. “Use a different color ink depending on the type of note you’re taking. It’ll keep everything more organized and easier to find. Highlighters would help with this too.”

 

Ayato was extremely conscious of how close her body was to his. He could feel his face heating up and really hoped that she couldn’t see from this angle.

 

“Thanks,” he mumbled. Hinami picked up the rubric for the essay he was supposed to be completing. 

 

“Do you have a way to distinguish which notes you took were on the book this is for?” 

 

“No,” he said sheepishly. Hinami giggled melodically. 

 

“That’s okay, we can sort through all of this stuff. I think Onii-chan has some highlighters we can  use to put all of it into categories.” She turned to face him more. “We should go shopping for some more supplies for you. I can help you pick out the right kind of pens that’ll help you the best.” She had a sort of twinkle in her eye that Ayato never thought anyone would get from talking about school supplies. 

 

The door Kaneki had exited through opened. 

 

“Oh, Hinami,” he said, surprised. “I didn’t realize you were coming over.”

 

“Sorry, spur of the moment decision,” she said, self consciously scooting away a little from Ayato. 

 

“No, it's fine.” Kaneki continued to walk into the kitchen area. “Do you two want anything to drink?” he offered. Ayato mutely shook his head.

 

“No thank you,” said Hinami. Ayato noticed her shoulders tense slightly. “Onii-chan, something happened to the book you leant me, it….I kind of…can’t give it back to you.”

 

“Oh.” He looked taken aback at first before understanding flooded his eyes. “Okay, that’s fine. Was it-“

 

“Yeah,” Hinami cut him off.

 

“So you’re gonna stay over tonight?”

 

“If it’s okay with you….”

 

“Of course it is.” Kaneki smiled warmly. 

 

Ayato kept glancing back between the two of them. Some unspoken conversation had gone on a moment ago, but he wasn’t sure what it was about. 

 

 

“Hinami?” Ayato said in confusion as he walked up to the front door of Kaneki’s apartment. He had left one of the books he was supposed to be reading there the day before so he decided to stop by here to see if Kaneki was there. He hadn’t expected to find Hinami sitting outside.

 

“Oh, um hi,” she said. She quickly wiped her wrist across her eyes, but it didn’t hide the fact that she was obviously crying. “I, uh, left my key here yesterday-“ 

 

“What’s wrong?” He remembered how she was in a similar state the day before. Something was going on, someone was hurting her, and it made his blood boil.

 

“Nothing. I’m fine.”

 

“Bullshit. You’re not fine.” He sat next to her. “Tell me what happened.”

 

“I…. It’s really nothing. I had a….argument with my cousin. It happens a lot, I’m used to it.”

 

“You can tell me anything, really. I don’t mind.”

 

“There isn’t much to tell, really. My cousin, he has a lot of pent up anger at, well, me and Kaneki. He…doesn’t really have a filter.”

 

There was a moment of silence between them. How often did this happen? She had mentioned something about her cousin the other day, and he must of done something to the book she had told her brother she couldn’t return. The more he thought about it the more this situation angered him. And the more he wanted to punch this dick head’s face in.

 

“It’s cold out here…if you want you could come over to my place until your bother gets off his shift.” Ayato felt his face heat up at how suggestive that sounded. Honest to god, he had not meant it to come out that way.

 

“Really? You wouldn’t mind? I don’t want to be an inconvenience.”

 

You could never be an inconvenience, he wanted to say “It’s not like I want you to catch a cold or something.”

 

 

Hinami was exhausted. She had ended up staying much later at school than she had thought she would. First tutorial, than college counseling. Add that to the fact that the sun was starting to set earlier in the day due to the time of year. 

 

To make matters an inkling worse, her exhaustion was wearing on her nerves. She knew from the start that she would at some point need to talk to her aunt about college. That didn’t mean she hadn’t taken her sweet time waiting till the last minute. She knew it would be best to confront the conversation that day. Get the hard part out of the way. Well, more like a portion of the hard part. 

 

Her train of thought was forgotten when she saw Ayato leaning against the fence bordering the campus. 

 

“What are you doing here? I mean, thanks for being here, but….why are you here?”

 

“I had something I wanted to ask you but it’s kinda late now so I’ll walk you home.”

 

“Oh, okay! But you realize you could’ve texted me….” Ayato shrugged.

 

They fell into step beside each other, starting up a light hearted conversation.

 

As they started to approach Hinami’s house, Ayato came to a stop. “Hinami, about that thing I wanted to ask you…”

 

“Oh yeah.” She stopped walking so that she could stand facing him. “What’s on your mind?”

 

“I, uh, are you free tomorrow night?” 

 

“Hm, yeah I think so,” she said thoughtfully.

 

“I was wondering if you, maybe, wanted to uh, see a movie or something.” He awkwardly scratched the back of his head.

 

“Like, a date?” Ayato felt his face heat up.

 

“Well, um, well yeah, like a-“ Hinami cut him off by gently kissing him. Ayato was too stunned to respond. His heart was beating so fast. When she pulled back, she gave him a comforting smile.

 

“I’d love to. I’ll see you tomorrow.” With one more amazing smile, she turned and walked up to her front door, waving slightly as she closed it. 

 

“Yeah,” Ayato said, smiling despite himself.

 

 

It had been a week. They were officially dating for a week. Ayato was extremely happy by this. He didn’t want to sound like some love sick teenager, but he enjoyed every bit of time he spent with Hinami. 

 

He was turning the corner leading to Hinami’s Aunt’s house when he heard a male voice shout. 

 

“I’m done with you giving me this fucking attitude!” The front door was open wide. Hinami was cowering in the doorway, a man probably in his early twenties towering over her. Her cousin, no doubt.

 

“I don’t know what I-“ 

 

“All this talk about college like you’re fucking better than me,” he shouted, staggering forward a step, Hinami scurrying backwards. Ayato broke into a sprint towards the scene. 

 

“I didn't mean it like that, I swear.” Hinami’s voice wavered. She sounded so meek, it shot anger through Ayato.

 

“Stop talking back you bitch,” her cousin raised his hand and slapped her across the face just as Ayato made it to where they were standing.

 

“Hey!” He shouted, pushing the guy with enough strength to force him back a step. “What the fuck are you doing?!”

 

“Ayato-“ 

 

“Who the hell are you? This isn’t any of your business,” he took a step forward, trying to intimidate him. It didn’t work.

 

“It damn well is my business,” Ayato growled.

 

“What, you her boyfriend or something?”

 

Ayato’s fist connected with his jaw, shocking him and knocking him back. 

 

“Back off.”

 

“Ayato!” Hinami grabbed his arm, quickly pulling him away from the house. She stopped walking once they were a couple streets down.

 

“Sorry,” Ayato said quietly. “I got carried away-“ 

 

Hinami pulled him closer to her by the collar of his shirt, kissing him passionately. Not exactly what Ayato had expected. He thought she would be mad with him. He wrapped his arms around her, deepening the kiss. 

 

They pulled back, both panting. 

 

“Thank you,” she said, leaning her forehead against his. “Thank you so much.”


End file.
